


all the midnight rules we're breaking

by demonglass



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, I wrote this on a whim, M/M, also?? i fucking miss summer and i want it so thats how we got here, as i do, but he's living his best life so it's aight, hyunjin is uh...how u say clingy as fuck, i guess?? bc we need a real tag in this bitch, me brain vomiting at 1am, neways enjoy!, some of us are just touch starved and gay and that's what this whole thing is, t for smoochin n i think one of them curses at some point honestly i don't remember tho, there's a baseball reference in there bc i Know Sports
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 13:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18477394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonglass/pseuds/demonglass
Summary: Jisung has rules. Jisung tries very hard to follow them. When Hyunjin is around, he does not succeed.





	all the midnight rules we're breaking

**Author's Note:**

> I would just like to start by saying I can't be held accountable for this bc it was fueled by 2013 hunter hayes and me being high off my ass on sleep deprivation and thats why it's like this. 
> 
> uhhhh also .....i reread this this morning and it has some inchresting subtext but i didn't mean for it too so feel free to ignore that!!!

Jisung stares up at the textured white ceiling of his room and feels his heart surge in his chest until it catches in his throat and he has to swallow it back down. This is dangerous. There’s a song from almost ten years ago playing on Hyunjin’s phone across the room, and through the open window Jisung can hear the rush of a stray car shooting down the road. Hyunjin’s legs are propped up on the wall, surely leaving footprints Jisung’s mom will huff about when she notices them in a week or two, and Hyunjin’s head is resting on Jisung’s thighs. The carpeted floor tickles Jisung’s bare arms and he shivers at the hush of wind creeping through the screen holding out the night. A familiar chord strikes through the song and Jisung shivers again, unrelated to the encroaching cold. Hyunjin turns his head. Too dangerous.

“You want a blanket?” Hyunjin asks, legs tensed and ready to push away from the wall. Maybe if he stretches his long arms just enough he’ll be able to tug a throw down from Jisung’s bed.

“’M fine. Don’t worry.” Jisung watches Hyunjin’s legs go lax against the wall. He looks back to the shadow marbled ceiling. There’s something about this warm April night that feels like an early summer, and he’s been caught by it, swept up and dragged out to sea. And it’s so, so dangerous because the rules of summer are completely different and entirely ephemeral, but right now all he wants is to drag them out, pull them from June into this mid-April dream and live by them for the next few hours instead of his sensible midnight rules.

“You sure?” Hyunjin’s hand creeps up to poke Jisung’s cheek and then tug at his ear. “What's up? You seem weird.”

Jisung moves to swat Hyunjin’s reaching hand away, but then Hyunjin’s pinky finger brushes lightly against the delicate skin just below his ear and the protest dies in his throat, right above his heart, surging up again. The song picks up and Jisung can taste the excitement of the guitar as clearly as a crushed cherry on his tongue. He feels light, lighter than air - like Hyunjin’s weight on his legs is the only thing keeping him from floating up, up and away. His eyes slip to the window and he watches the stars wink down at him through the budding trees. If it was summer maybe he would fly away, but it’s midnight on a Saturday and the midnight rules are very different from the rules of summer. He can’t ease the itch that runs straight through his core down to his soul by standing now and fleeing to the grass beyond his window where fireflies glow on and off to the pulse of his heart. Now there are rules.

But then Hyunjin turns, rolls from his back to his stomach, so only his toes are on the wall anymore and his chin is resting on Jisung’s hip. His fingers twist so his thumb and forefinger rub back and forth over the small hard spot in the center of Jisung’s earlobe from his piercing, and the rest of his fingers dance idly across the back of Jisung’s neck, brushing through the ends of his hair. “Talk to me,” he whines, and Jisung can feel the words rumble up Hyunjin’s throat against the top of his thigh. “I’m a good listener!”

Now there are rules. Jisung’s eyes flicker away from the velvety sky peppered with twinkling stars and the silhouettes of maples coming back to full boom after a barren winter. He watches Hyunjin’s insistent face for a moment and lets out a breath.

_“Does it ever bother you?” Hyunjin asks, tilting his head down as if he could make himself even smaller when he’s already curled in a tight ball against Jisung, using his folded legs as a pillow. A strange, boney choice of a pillow._

_“What?” Jisung still has half an eye on the YouTube video on his phone._

_Hyunjin shifts. The hand he has around Jisung’s goes still, stops rubbing circles into his palm, stops linking and unlinking their fingers. “That I’m… like this?”_

_Jisung pauses the video with the thumb of his free hand. “Hyunjin?”_

_“Not that I’m-” Hyunjin flushes, “I just mean that I’m this… touchy. Does it bother you?”_

_Jisung lets his phone fall down onto the mattress of his bed. “Jinnie,” he laughs a bit through his nose, “I’ve literally lost count of the number of times I’ve kissed you this week alone.” He smiles and curls down so they’re nose to nose and kisses Hyunjin’s cheek once, twice, three times before moving on to his forehead, the bridge of his nose, his other cheek. “There. At least ten.”_

_Hyunjin pouts, juts out his lower lip and makes his eyes even wider than usual. “That’s not an answer.”_

_“You’ve been laying on me since we got home and we’ve literally been holding hands for the last thirty minutes. Does that scream_ ‘gosh I sure do hate Hyunjin touching me’ _to you?”_

_“I dunno,” Hyunjin mumbles. “I just don’t want you to get annoyed ‘s all. I know I’m clingy.”_

_Jisung squeezes his hand and twists their fingers together himself. “Don’t worry about it, man. It’s nice. I like it. The only time it annoys me is when it’s you sticking your cold ass hands up my shirt during the winter. And winter’s pretty much over now so I’d say you’re safe for a good few months.”_

_Hyunjin lets out a small breath of relief and relaxes against Jisung, sinking into the mattress. “Does that mean we can cuddle and I can nap now?” His voice is a calculated hopeful and Jisung_ knows _that voice because he’s heard it a thousand times and is almost immune to it at this point, but honestly? He could go for some more skin on skin contact and a nap doesn’t sound terrible._

_He sighs. The random compilation video spiral will have to wait. “Sure.”_

_Hyunjin’s face splits into a grin and he shimmies up from Jisung’s knees to his shoulder, throws an arm around his chest and tangles his ankles between the blankets and Jisung’s legs. They curl and tuck around each other with practiced smoothness and fade out like old lightbulbs, glowing faintly before slipping away to darkness._

Jisung blinks back into his body like he’s waking from a dream. Hyunjin’s fingers are still light on the delicate skin of Jisung’s throat, and he’s looking at him the same way he’d looked when he’d asked Jisung to cuddle a few weeks ago, when the air had had this nighttime nip to it during the middle of the day. He wants something. He wants Jisung to talk.

Now there are midnight rules, and Jisung is going to break them.

**Rule One: Don’t say anything you wouldn’t say during the day. It leads to dangerous places.**

“I guess I just feel weird tonight,” Jisung says. There’s a new song playing now, but it’s by the same full voiced boy who’s grown to a man with a whole life outside his music. Hyunjin hums and it vibrates through Jisung’s skin down to his bones. “It just happens sometimes, I dunno. I doubt it’ll make sense if I try to explain it.”

“It’s okay. Go on.” Hyunjin inches higher up Jisung’s torso so his chin is at his ribs and encourages with his hands, reaching farther to brush through Jisung’s hair and scratch lightly at his scalp.

The words fall from Jisung’s lips without him really trying to stop them. It’s as easy as pouring a cold glass of lemonade when the sun is beating down on the Earth, baking the ground and the boys stuck out on it. “I guess it’s just that it’s a normal Saturday, but it was so warm out today that it feels like it could’ve been a summer day instead. Like how we walked to the corner to get popsicles? And we haven’t done that in ages so it kind of threw me back, you know?”

Hyunjin nods, fidgets with the hem of Jisung’s shirt with the hand not working through Jisung’s hair.

“And everything is different during the summer and it’s so much easier I could _cry_ . I don’t have to worry about waking up on Monday for school because I don’t even know what day of the week it _is_ until I get my schedule for work. I don’t have to worry about staying uniform or minding the rules because the rules of summer are different and you can get away with almost anything. Summer is just _free_. I don’t want to be locked up and boxed up, I just want to go out and run until I can’t breathe. God, I don’t know how to describe it, Jinnie. You just know when you feel it. Like your heart fills your whole body and you could just-” Jisung cuts off and throws his hands in the air, helpless. A frustrated sound jumps around in the back of his throat and escapes past his lips and he screws his face up, upset that he can’t find the right words. His hands drop back to the carpet.

“Hey,” Hyunjin murmurs softly, pressing his lips against Jisung’s ribs through his shirt. “It’s okay.”

Jisung blinks and is suprised by the hot tear that slips down his cheek when his eyes open. Of course he’d cry. He doesn’t even know what he’s crying about yet. He really can’t trust himself past midnight, can he? He ducks his head so Hyunjin’s hand slips away and pushes himself up so he’s sitting, leaving Hyunjin to roll off of him. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

Hyunjin huffs and holds himself up on his hands like he’s practicing a yoga pose. He doesn’t say anything, but he keeps watching Jisung expectantly. Jisung quickly crumbles under his gaze.

“Shut up,” he mumbles though Hyunjin has said nothing. He misses Hyunjin’s fingers running through his hair, and shakes his head even as his traitor body shuffles back over to Hyunjin. Hyunjin sits up properly and leans his back against the wall so Jisung can lean his against his chest. He’s shorter than Hyunjin - which Hyunjin never lets him forget - but right now it means he sinks easily into his arms, forehead just right against the spot where Hyunjin’s neck arches into his jaw.

“I just,” he sighs, “I don’t.” What is he trying to say?

Hyunjin rubs his middle and then his hand finds its way back into Jisung’s hair, tugging the words from him.

“I _want_ it.” Jisung’s voice is almost a whine, and he blames it on the hour, on the sweet song that’s playing now that had played on the radio when he was twelve, makes him homesick when he’s sitting on his own goddam bedroom floor. “I want it to be summer again. I want to feel like summer again. And I did today, but I don’t know if this was just a fluke and it’ll be cold again tomorrow and I got my hopes up for nothing. I know I could check the forecast but the forecast _lies_.” He knows this from experience.

Hyunjin’s chest dances against him with silent laughter, and Jisung feels something sneak up on him, tiptoeing around inside his head, creeping down to the tip of his tongue. He can almost taste it.

“I want to lay on the grass and look at the stars. I want to run down the street in the dark when there aren't any cars out. I want to catch the wind and fly and feel like I can do any crazy fucking thing I want without feeling like an idiot because someone’s expecting me to keep it together. I don’t want university to tear me out of the sun and stick me in classrooms where I can’t even see the sky again. I just want a little more time. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Hyunjin says softly, thumb stroking Jisung’s wrist, easing his fisted hand open so he can run fingers over his palm and set his skin buzzing like summer cicadas.

“I don’t know,” Jisung breathes. Hyunjin’s shirt ripples like his breath is a light wind. “I’m selfish. I just want so much and I know I can’t have it so I feel like I shouldn't want anything.”

“Sungie, you’re allowed to want things. It doesn’t make you selfish.” The hand Hyunjin has in Jisung’s hair presses a little harder, as if Hyunjin knows there’s still that persistent itch burning through Jisung and he’s trying to help soothe it.

**Rule Two: Don’t act on impulse. Whatever you do will last longer than a reckless moment.**

“I don’t just want things.” Jisung’s voice is so quiet he almost can’t hear it himself.

Hyunjin is silent long enough that Jisung wonders if maybe he didn’t hear either. Then: “What do you want?”

Jisung’s heart surges again, and again he swallows it back down. “I dunno.” He’s stalling, deciding how much he’s going to end up saying. With Hyunjin still curling the ends of his hair around his fingers, twisting Jisung’s secrets out of him, it might just be everything. Jisung knows Hyunjin wants him to open up and pour everything out, but there’s another rule he hasn’t broken yet. He hasn’t swung three strikes yet. He isn’t out yet.

Jisung pulls away from Hyunjin before he becomes fully pliant under Hyunjin’s insistence. He focuses on the carpet under them. He _tries_ to. He doesn’t last long though, because Hyunjin has reaching hands, because Hyunjin is an explorer and Jisung’s skin is his favorite place to roam, because within seconds Hyunjin has his arm in one hand and his chin in the other and has turned his face so they’re nose to nose. Eye to eye.

Jisung sucks in a breath. Hyunjin’s eyes are reflecting a dozen pinprick stars from Jisung’s string lights, and they’re wide with something Jisung can’t put words to. He sees the same caged feeling in his chest buried in Hyunjin’s dark eyes. He shivers when Hyunjin’s breath hits him. This is much, much more dangerous than he thought it would be.

**Rule Three: Don’t do anything absolutely stupid fucking crazy.**

Hyunjin leans forward slow as spring melting ice, slow enough that Jisung can chose to lean away if this isn’t what he wants. Slow enough that when Jisung doesn’t move an inch, half a verse of song plays before summer comes with Hyunjin’s lips, as insistent as the rest of him.

The rules fly out the open window and now Jisung is the ice, melting into Hyunjin. The persistent itch cutting through him goes soft, loses its hard edges and fades to a sigh. And there’s that surge in his chest, that wordless feeling that is a warm breeze sweeping through the woods at dusk, a shout of glee and a fist raised to the sky, abandon and euphoria and summer air in his lungs, rushing through him, the taste of it rich on his tongue. Jisung presses closer and decides if Hyunjin wants the world as well, if Hyunjin wants as much as he does, then maybe it’s all right for him to want it all too.

Maybe the air will be cool as night tomorrow, and for many more days to come before April slips with bated breath into May, until May tumbles into the heat of June and sets them free, but Hyunjin has enough heat, enough lazy enthusiasm to keep them both warm until the seasons catch up to them. It’s spring out in the world now, all new life and blooming pinks and greens, but in Jisung’s heart the blossoms have long since opened. It’s summer in Jisung’s heart now. It’s summer in every moment with Hyunjin, easy or dangerous, and that’s enough for him.

**Author's Note:**

> So uh,,, if u got that very specific feeling about summer n stuff that i tried and failed to describe in this holla at me bc i need to know i'm not alone in this pls i'm begging


End file.
